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Kostish
General information Evonisk (Eng. Evanish) is a West-Germanic language, related especially to Old English, but also Dutch, English, and German, with some borrowings from North-Germanic languages. The idea behind it is that it might have been a hypothetical language to develop from Old English if some of the Anglo-Saxons had traveled to an island more northward and thus had their language more influenced by North-Germanic rather than Latin and French influences(and I must say, it is much more clear than Modern English). At the moment, Evanish is being carefully constructed, along with prefixes and suffixes to be used in compound words that are in place of Romance words. Many things may still change, and I make edits and additions to this page about once a day, but as it develops more, the updates might become less frequent. Phonology There is a simple alphabet, and I won't waste time like many others in explaining the phonetics Alphabet It's a modified Latin alphabet with 31 characters, including: æ, ð, è, ȝ, ò, þ, ù, and ƿ(optional): *A, Æ, B, C, D, Ð, E, È, F, G, Ȝ, H, I, J, K, L, M, N O, Ò, P, R, S, T, Þ, U, Ù, V, W, Y, Z *a, æ, b, c, d, ð, e, è, f, g, ȝ, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, ò, p, r, s, t, þ, u, ù, v, w, y, z If a ȝ(yogh) comes at the end of the word, it is silent. Evanish - English letter comparisons The names of the letters in Evonisk use the sounds shown to the right of them to sound them out. Basic Grammar Sentence Structures ^The punctuation is what the sentence ends with only, all sentences begin with a capital(if not writing in the Elder Futhark). ^^An imperative sentence is O-V with the understood subject of 2nd person singular, but may be S-O-V if specified with 2nd person plural or singular. Noun Declension see Evonisk nouns for more details, nouns may change, since Old English, two genders melded into one, and weak and strong verbs have mixed together. Nouns which follow prepositions are used in the dative case. Articles & Demonstratives Articles in Evanish come before all nouns except proper nouns and pronouns, the articles gender agrees with its noun. Ðæt is the demonstrative "that" and Ðis is the demonstrative of "this", if they are used as adjectives, they have adjective declension, if used as nound, they've noun declension. Conjunctions Subordinating conjunctions aren't decided yet. Negation When negating a verb "ne" is added before the verb, that is all. Double negatives mean a positive as in saying "I did not see nobody" would be "I saw someone". Verb Conjugation Verbs in Evanish are highly inflectional. There is no simple present, one always uses progressive present, so instead of saying "I like..." or "I think..." it sounds like "I'm liking" or "I'm thinking", but the distinction isn't really noticed in Evanish. For understanding the grammar behind it, see the Evonisk verbs page. Here's an example of the English verb "to slay"... English has lost much of its morphology, Evanish hasn't... This is also one of the English words with more morphology than the usual as well... Describing Words All describing words and phrases come before what they describe, which might sound strange in English. Adjectives They generally end in -isc(pronounced as English "-ish"). Adjectives are never written post-positively. In this example "foreign" modifies the word "man". Later, adjectives will be declined for gender. Predicative Adjectives are used with the verb "beon" meaning "to be". An example: "The man will be foreign" would be written "Se mannu ƿerð beeth walisc". For comparative and superlative, see above. Note that there are two different future tenses for different purposes, and it is not wise to use this as a model for each. Adverbs They generally end in -lyk. The grammar is the same as adjectives. Never post-positively Adjectives and Adverbs cannot be written post-positively, that is, they never follow nouns. An example of post-positive in English would be "tell me something interesting" would have to be written in Evanish as "tell to me an interesting something", note that an article (an) is used, articles must follow every noun and pronouns with the exception of names(and infinitives). Dictionary Relative pronouns *hƿalyc - which *hƿenn - when *hƿa - who Pronouns To understand these more clearly, see Evonisk nouns. Affixes E *-ere man who has to do with F *fyr- of or pertaining to fire OE "fyr" G *ga- together/with (cognate with syn) CG I *-isc (pronounced as amer. eng. "ish")added to the end of nouns to form adjectives to mean "ways of or similar to". *-iȝ added to mean "full of or characterized by" CG *-isk is the older form from which isc derives added now only to the end of languages (e. g. Evonisk) L *-lyk added to the end of words generally to form adverbs cognate "Eng -ly"Old. Fris. "-lik" M *-man added to verb stems to form workers of the task Ger "mann" *mund- of or pertaining to the mind CG U *ur- proto Ger "ur" Noun Stems list here Adjectives/Adverbs F *Forrist - first G *Galyk - similar Ga + liek N *norþ - north(as an adjective) OE "norð" S *strong - strong OE "strang", Eng "strong" W *walisc - foreign *wærm - warm OE "wearm" Prepositions *av - of swed "av" *in - in Goth, Ger, OE, "in" Verb List list here Example text As of yet incomplete... only the italisized part has been done so far. The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak. They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other. Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him; and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak. And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two. Se norþul windu ond Se sonnu soked hwalyc bedu strongur, hwenn æn dekken in onn wærmil kòtem fahrereu kummdu. Dè klincdu av þe aen hwa forrist dondu av barindem Category:Languages Category:Conlangs Category:Germanic conlangs Category:Evonisk